Today’s New York Times quotes CNN President Jonathan Klein calling Anderson Cooper, in light of Cooper’s emotional performances from New Orleans, “the anchorperson of the future.” “He’s all human,” Klein told the Times. “He’s not putting on.” Accordingly, Klein, Cooper and their colleagues go to some length to convince the reader that Cooper is the real deal. For example, the anchorman, who is featured this month in fashion layouts in Maxim and in Esquire, “could care less how he looks, his hair and makeup,” says his producer. Furthermore, the Times says, “[Cooper] says he has no intention of returning to his hip New York existence any time soon.” “This is life and death,” Cooper says of reporting from New Orleans. “This is not some blow-dried pundit standing outraged for some ratings…”
Meanwhile, the Times also reports that Yahoo has hired Kevin Sites — the journalist who stirred up outrage when he videotaped a U.S. Marine shooting an Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque last year (the Marine was cleared in a subsequent investigation). Sites tells the Times that his credo is to be “transparent, vulnerable and empathetic.”